


i was careful but nothing is harmless

by oftirnanog



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Codependency, Hand Jobs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 07:42:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10986486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oftirnanog/pseuds/oftirnanog
Summary: Gansey had always been curious about Ronan in what he’d thought was an abstract way, a detached almost scientific wondering about the differences between kissing boys and kissing girls. Now, kneeling with legs on either side of Ronan’s waist, pressing his weight into Ronan’s lap, feeling him hard in his jeans pressing back, Gansey thinks that curiosity was never as abstract as he’d imagined.---Or, that time I wrote a follow up to that tattoo fic and finally resolved the sexual tension.





	i was careful but nothing is harmless

**Author's Note:**

> Title once again from "You Were A Kindness" because seriously. That song.

It’s a strange routine to fall into, but it’s a routine they fall into nonetheless. Ronan’s tattoo is so massive that it takes three separate sittings to complete—a number of sittings that’s still fewer than most people would endure. He books them only ten days apart, leaving Gansey to wonder how much Ronan is motivated by the tattoo itself and how much by the distracting pain of a needle scratching the skin on his back into a constantly open wound. He suspects it’s the latter and it only makes him feel worse about the entire thing.

The tattoo itself is spectacular. The line work twists and snarls, sharp and vicious in some places and softly curving in others. Every time Gansey sees it he sees something new, and not just because there’s always more being added to it. It’s so intricate that just when Gansey thinks he has it memorized he notices a new detail. He sometimes wonders if the tattoo actually changes on Ronan’s skin, swirling into new patterns in the night while Ronan sleeps restlessly.

            He was overwhelmed by it that first time: by the dark lines and the angry reddened skin, but also by the bare expanse of Ronan’s back that until then he’d never had cause to stare at so closely and intimately. Muscles rippling and coiled tightly under the skin. Skin Gansey suddenly had a reason to touch, to run his hands over. And because he was overwhelmed he hadn’t been careful. He’d let his hands drift without purpose. He’d lingered too long over the soft skin of Ronan’s waist and stared too obviously at the curve of Ronan’s lips, the way that curve had softened from its usual hardened sneer just because Gansey had rubbed some lotion into his back.

            Ronan has been an unrecognizable creature lately, violently carving himself into something that looks less like his father, honing the edges of his grief into a sharp anger. He’s not the Ronan that Gansey first met, to whom laughter came so easily, warm and bright and fierce. That fierceness is still there, but it’s something else now, dangerous and prickling with venom. It makes it hard to look at him. That shorn head, that inked skin, those torn up knuckles and the bruise under his eye from Declan’s fist, all of them break Gansey’s heart. They elicit an aching in his chest that Gansey has come to recognize as its own kind of grief, and a burning, impossible need to fix him, to coax the ragged pieces that are left of Ronan back into the shape he was before Niall died.

He’s a different Ronan, a barely recognizable Ronan, a poor facsimile of what he was before, but he’s still _Ronan_. So Gansey still tries. He softens under Gansey’s careful hands, and that softening, that appearance of a more familiar Ronan, is as seductive as that expanse of skin. So Gansey keeps offering, keeps gently cleaning wounded inky skin and soothing in lotion with a gentle circling of his palms.

And Ronan lets him. Ronan lets him. A fact more surprising than Gansey would have anticipated given all the casual touches that marked their early friendship. Now Gansey can’t remember the last time he touched Ronan without the pretence of caring for freshly inked skin. How did he become so wary of his own best friend? Even now he’s not sure if that wariness is born from a fear of inadvertently alienating Ronan or from a fear of cutting himself on all of Ronan’s newly serrated edges. He’s not sure if that wariness is for Ronan’s sake or his own.

            He doesn’t think about any of that as he rubs his hands over Ronan’s back, eyes tracing over healed patterns as his fingertips try to memorize the slightly raised skin running along these strange lines that resist familiarity. Ronan, as always, is so still beneath him. More still than Gansey has ever seen him, even before his entire being was coiled under the weight of his grief, before he was a vibrating storm constantly on the brink of wreaking destruction, filled with aggressive energy barely contained by taut muscles and skin. It’s a cautious stillness, like he doesn’t want to make any sudden movement that might scare Gansey off, but that’s probably wishful thinking to believe that Ronan wants him there that much.

            Gansey thinks this is probably the last time he’ll ever do this. They’ve already pushed this routine past its expiry date, dragged it beyond anything based on need, which means they are now firmly in the territory of desire and they’ve already crossed that line that Gansey has so far been careful not to cross. He feels like he’s on fire, reckless and agitated, his carefully cultivated buttoned-up exterior wearing and fraying at the edges. It’s the first time in a long time that Gansey has felt all his practiced facades fall so uselessly apart. They are both aware of the pretence, a cousin of a lie that Ronan has decided to allow, so he gives in, lets the incendiary heat in his chest drive a momentum that he decides, for once, not to dampen with a second thought.

            Gansey lets his hands slide forward from Ronan’s waist to his stomach. Ronan shivers and his throat clicks as he swallows and Gansey gives in to an impulse he’s been fighting for weeks by letting his forehead drop to Ronan’s back, the tip of his nose pressed against one of the knobs of his spine. Ronan stills impossibly and he wonders what they look like from the outside, a frozen tableau hanging on the precipice of given-into temptation, a piece of fruit with a bite already taken out of it.

            “Gansey?” Ronan says, in that same wreaked way that he’s only heard once before but can’t seem to forget.

            “Ronan,” Gansey replies, and it comes out too desperate, so much that he almost wants to swallow it back if he could.

            But then Ronan turns in his arms and slams his mouth against Gansey’s. It’s too hard. Their teeth crash together and Gansey’s lip gets caught between them so that the metallic coppery taste of blood springs sharp on his tongue. Gansey brings his hands to Ronan’s head, fingers skating over the prickle of buzzed hair as he pulls Ronan closer, opens his own mouth wider to accommodate Ronan’s tongue. Ronan’s hands press tentatively against his ribs even as his mouth presses desperately forward. He thinks he can feel him shaking.

            Gansey shifts closer, a move that has his growing erection pressing against the zipper of his khakis and he moans.

            “Fuck,” Ronan breathes. He pulls back enough to look at Gansey, his eye lashes impossibly long over his too blue eyes. He looks hungry and wary at all once and Gansey, god, Gansey wants to kiss him until he forgets his own name.

            Ronan’s hands are still soft, still trembling against Gansey’s ribs, so he takes them in his own hands and guides them underneath his shirt. Ronan’s fingers tense against him and his eyes flutter shut. Gansey moves to straddle him properly and rocks forward.

            “Fuck,” Ronan says again. He slides his hands up Gansey’s back.

Gansey had always been curious about Ronan in what he’d thought was an abstract way, a detached almost scientific wondering about the differences between kissing boys and kissing girls. Now, kneeling with legs on either side of Ronan’s waist, pressing his weight into Ronan’s lap, feeling him hard in his jeans pressing back, Gansey thinks that curiosity was never as abstract as he’d imagined. He presses his lips to Ronan’s throat, drags his mouth up to his jaw, over the sharp angle of his cheekbone, softly over a closed eyelid in an intimacy that almost burns. But he can’t help himself. Can’t help the gentleness even as some other instinct tugs for something more aggressive, more anxious and immediate in its desperation. Ronan’s hands clench and unclench at his sides, under his shirt, fingernails digging slightly into his skin, little pricking crescents that aren’t quite painful enough to ground Gansey in the reality of what they’re doing. He brings his mouth back down to cover Ronan’s and Ronan groans into his mouth, initiates an overenthusiastic clash of tongues that is messy and too wet and so good that Gansey wonders how he’s still in one piece when he feels like all his nerves are about to ignite.

He scrabbles at the hem of Ronan’s shirt and tugs up. Ronan pulls back immediately to lift his arms and get it off faster. His hands are back on Gansey so quickly that he doesn’t even have time to miss their absence. He looks at Gansey and in his eyes is a strange mix of desire and fear and wonder and it looks so much like Ronan, like the Ronan he first met, like the Ronan he spent his summer with, that Gansey could cry. He has the wild frantic thought that maybe if they keep doing this Ronan will come back to himself, that maybe Gansey can piece him back together with this new closeness. But then Ronan ducks his head and the look is gone as quickly as it arrived and Gansey only has a moment to feel a swooping dip of disappointment before Ronan is pulling his polo over his head and then tonguing at the hollow of his throat.

It’s overwhelming. Gansey forgets about everything else: about dead fathers and dead Welsh kings and dead selves. All that matters is Ronan’s skin, hot under his hands, Ronan’s mouth dragging up his neck, leaving a wet sticky trail in its wake, and their hips rocking and rocking and rocking providing just enough friction to keep them both on the edge but not quite enough to push either of them over. He would climb off to get them both out of their pants, but he’s worried about what will happen if they break apart for even a moment. Worried that if they stop touching then one of them might have a moment too long to think, a chance to second guess, to think better of it, and if that happens Gansey thinks he might disintegrate.

Instead he brings one hand down from where it was curled around the back of Ronan’s neck and slides it between them. He stills his own hips long enough to unbutton the front of Ronan’s jeans and start working his hand beneath the band of his boxers. Ronan freezes on a sharp intake of breath and watches Gansey’s hand working between them. He won’t look at Gansey’s face. There’s a blush high on his cheeks and Gansey presses his lips to it as he finally, finally gets his fingers around Ronan.

Ronan swears and squeezes his eyes shut, bucks his hips and groans, digging his fingers into Gansey’s hips. It’s awkward and cramped and Gansey is so hard he thinks he might come right in his khakis just from getting to touch Ronan, from getting to squeeze his hand around the hot thickness of him and hear him cry out in response, a choked, bitten-off curse.

“Fuck, Gansey,” Ronan breathes.

He bucks up into Gansey’s hand and kisses him, open mouthed and sloppy. Then he brings his own hand around to scramble at the button of Gansey’s pants. Gansey’s dick twitches and he makes a strangled keening sound when Ronan wraps his hand around him. It should be embarrassing. It is embarrassing. Gansey can’t quite bring himself to care.

It’s still awkward. Both their arms are bent at uncomfortable angles and neither of them can get enough room to really manoeuver, but Gansey couldn’t care less. It’s hot and sweaty and they end up with their foreheads pressed together, not so much kissing as breathing into each other’s mouths, panting and gasping as they hitch their hips together. He’s so warm that when the familiar heat starts to travel up his spine it feels almost cold. He’s so close. He’s vibrating with it. The rhythm of his hips becomes erratic and he moves his hand faster on Ronan’s dick, swipes his thumb over the head and presses into the slit just to see what happens.

And that’s how Ronan comes first. With a surprised, “Oh, fuck,” and then his body folding into Gansey’s as he pulses hot over Gansey’s hand. Gansey works him through it, still rutting into Ronan’s hand even though it’s stilled as he rides the tremors of his orgasm. Gansey kisses all over his face. Uses his clean hand to cup the back of Ronan’s neck and rub his thumb over the soft skin behind his ear. He kisses his lips gently and Ronan surges into it, makes it less gentle and starts moving his hand on Gansey’s dick again.

It only takes a few strokes to finish him off. Ronan bumps his thumb over the head in an imitation of what Gansey had done to him and that’s the end of it. Gansey’s orgasm washes over him in crashing waves that have him clutching at Ronan’s shoulder, the other hand grabbing at his hip, making a sticky mess on Ronan’s skin. Ronan keeps touching him until Gansey has to knock his hand away and still he shudders with aftershocks.

They don’t move for a long moment. The only sound is their heavy breathing. Ronan’s fingers are once again clenching and unclenching at Gansey’s hips, shaking a little as the high wears off. Gansey senses a retreat, so he tilts Ronan’s chin up and kisses him as softly as he can, in a way he hopes is reassuring. He’s wondered what you can say with a kiss. If you really can communicate whole treatises with just a press of lips. He doubts it, but just now he hopes so, because even if he could find the words, Ronan probably wouldn’t listen. And he needs Ronan to know they’re okay. That they’ll always be okay. That there’s no version of their lives where they won’t be okay. They are not ruined, cannot be ruined, and Gansey’s not going anywhere. Ronan could raze Henrietta to the ground, hell, he could burn down the whole goddamn world, and Gansey would still be there, standing in the ashes waiting for him. He wonders if Ronan would do the same for him, but that’s a train of thought for a different day. So he presses his lips gently to Ronan’s cheekbone, just below his eye. Moves up and drops a kiss on his eyebrow. Picks out neglected spots on his face that no one ever thinks to touch, as proof of intimacy.

It might not work quite the way he wants it to, but it works a little, because he can feel Ronan settle beneath him, can somehow sense the relaxing of nerves in the way his hands come around to rest at his lower back, palms spread wide. Ronan sighs and lets himself tilt forward enough that his nose lands in the hollow of Gansey’s throat. Gansey would happily stay this way, keep Ronan beneath him, safe in Monmouth. Safe from drinking. Safe from racing. Safe from whatever other self-destructive tendency Ronan might be chasing these days. But they really need to clean themselves up.

He says as much, the words murmured against Ronan’s temple, reluctantly, more awkwardly than he would like. Ronan makes a sound of assent and pulls back enough to look at him. He lets his hands drop away from his back and Gansey carefully extricates himself from his position.

Ronan stands as soon as Gansey is off him because of course he does. Gansey thinks about following, since there’s no real reason they shouldn’t both clean up at the same time, but he stays put, unable or unwilling to force one foot in front of the other and face this head on.

He needn’t have worried. When Ronan comes back he’s holding a wet cloth that he promptly chucks at Gansey’s head.

Gansey wipes himself off and is then left standing next to Ronan’s bed holding a soiled, and now cold, damp washcloth. He’s never felt so much like a stranger in his own body, at once to big and too small for his own skin. Ronan is sprawled over his covers, eyes closed, hands behind his head, looking for all the world like casualness personified.

“You sleeping in here tonight?” he asks, not bothering to open his eyes.

Gansey wants to ask if Ronan’s asking him to, but he already knows the answer, and Ronan won’t admit to it. Will instead find an answer that isn’t a lie, but isn’t the truth either. A careful dodge and feint that would be elegant in its deflection.

“I suppose I am,” he says instead.

Gansey shucks off the rest of his clothes so that he’s just in his boxers and climbs onto the bed. Ronan is sprawled over the covers, so there’s no sense trying to pull them out enough to get underneath them. He curls onto his side, facing Ronan, and thinks about his body curved into the shape of a question mark and how appropriate that is. He wants to move closer. He wants to place his hand over Ronan’s chest and feel the reassuring heat of him, the steady pulse of his beating heart. He wants to take Ronan’s hand, an offered token of comfort. He wants a lot of things. Most of them he can’t have. But he can have this. The steady rise and fall of Ronan’s chest. The lingering scent of both of them of Ronan’s sheets. And this nearness, even though they aren’t touching. It’s all Gansey can have right now. It’s all Gansey can offer.


End file.
